Area Development News Desk

02/23/2012

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New York City-based Plaza Associates, a financial collections agency, acquired ACB American, a Covington, Kentucky-based collection agency to form Plaza Recovery. The merged company will invest more than $2.5 million to expand its North Kentucky location from 25,000 to 43,000-square-feet, and add up to 250 jobs to its workforce.

This year both companies celebrated their 50 anniversary. Plaza Associates concentrated on the financial sector and ACB focused on medical debt collections. The company will operate as Plaza Recovery for its financial sector clients, but will do business as ACB Recovery for its medical client base.

"The willingness and efficiency demonstrated by the state and city to work and partner with our companies was impressive," said Tony Faeth, former owner of ACB American and vice president of Plaza Recovery and ACB Recovery. "They took the time to listen and gain an understanding of our challenges as a business and as employers. It didn't take long to confirm our decision to stay and grow in Kentucky. Really, in the end, it reaffirmed decades of hard work we've put in here in Covington and the jobs we've been able to create along the way."

To persuade the newly formed firm to choose Covington as its home base, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority approved tax incentives of up to $1.2 million through the Kentucky Business Investment program. The performance-based incentive allows a company to keep a portion of its investment over the term of the agreement through corporate income tax credits and wage assessments by meeting job and investment targets.

Local officials praised the local firm for persuading its larger partner to relocate to Kentucky. "Plaza Recovery is the collective result of many hard-working individuals, especially Tony Faeth, who drew the attention of a larger company through a commitment to business success and to the city of Covington over the past several decades," said Covington Mayor Chuck Scheper. "We are thrilled that the company recognized the multiple benefits of Covington and selected it as the expansion site. This project exemplifies the virtues of Covington's strategy of courage plus vision equals growth."